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You'd need to install the right Python version though, and even with something like pyenv you might need to install system packages.

It really isn't as portable as one might wish.

This is my exact situation right now. Our website is made in Django, and we use Pyenv to manage our python versions. We'll likely be going to route of a docker image/ pyenv install script. It takes trial/error to figure out some of the packages you need if they aren't installed already, a single binary would be far easier for sure.

Portable means something else. Portable would mean that I could ship the virtualenv. Python missed the forest for the trees.

I still need to have python installed on the machine and download all of the libraries needed.

Not all operating systems carry Python >3.3 by default, that would mean installing backports or unofficial repositories on production machines.

Or you can use a static binary that just works.